


Visit

by More_familiar_wilds



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Caring Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Fever, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, Sick Jaskier | Dandelion, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/More_familiar_wilds/pseuds/More_familiar_wilds
Summary: Pointless, plotless little friendship one-shot.Jaskier is bedridden with a minor illness.  Geralt goes to see him.An uninspired title, I know!
Comments: 4
Kudos: 112





	Visit

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, welcome, and thank you for reading.
> 
> Please forgive my pointless, plotless, very poorly edited blurb of a fic. I'm happy you're here. ❤

Mid afternoon light sliced through the draped windows and a patch of sunlight covered Jaskier's sleeping legs, dust sifting in the bright beam. One hand was tucked under his cheek, his mouth half open. Someone had laid a damp cloth over his fore-head. A servant of the house most likely had thought of that; Geralt could not imagine the Countess he had met downstairs tending to the sickbed of anyone, even that of a favored bard and occasional lover.

Geralt quietly maneuvered a velvet chair closer the bedside and eased into it. It creaked threateningly beneath his weight and he shifted, uncomfortable. Like everything in the room, the chair was a dainty and lavish thing and he didn't care to end up on the floor. He imagined Jasker would love to wake to that...and no doubt would write mocking songs about it for months to come.

He pinned his yellow gaze to the man on the bed and frowned.

Jaskier was pale, and the tell-tale rash from the fever could be seen creeping up above the collar of his night shirt. A common pestilence in these parts, a surprise Jasker hadn't encountered it before. It was not often deadly and, of course, Jaskier would be under the care and patronage of the Countess and would not want for healers... but the smell of fever was thick in the air and Geralt could not recall ever seeing Jaskier so still, even in all their years of traveling together. He found it strangely... unsettling, that stillness.

Geralt made a decision then and cleared his throat loudly in the quiet of the room. It worked; Jaskier's face scrunched, then his chest hitched and he gasped and coughed himself awake. Jaskier lunged upright, the cloth falling away from his brow into his lap. Once he got himself under some sort of control, his gaze fell on Geralt, bleary and confused.

“G...Geralt?” He croaked, then rubbed his throat. “Is that you?”

“Hmm.”

Jaskier's pale face broke open into a sincere and happy smile. His voice regained some strength.

“Forgive me, of course the Countess and I do welcome you with open arms...! But...Gods, what are you doing here?”

Geralt shrugged one large shoulder.

“I was passing through on my way to a contract,” he said.

“...Truly?”

Jaskier's smile fell away and he scrambled to pull his shirt closed over the rash as though he could hide it. “Well, as you can perhaps tell, I am not in tip top traveling condition at the moment. But I am sure if you gave me a day or two, I will be right as rain!...Just this pesky cough, perhaps! Let me just inform the Countess that I'll be needing-”

“No.” Geralt shook his head. “You're not coming.”

He raised a hand as Jaskier opened his mouth to protest.

“I heard you were unwell,” Geralt continued. “So I thought. I would just see how. How you were.”

Jaskier blinked at him. 

“I dispatched a family of vampires north of Vizima a few weeks ago. I thought..” Geralt grit his teeth and hoped he wouldn't regret his next words. “I thought you might like to hear the story.”

Jaskier choked and Geralt waited patiently for the coughing fit to resolve itself. Jaskier grasped his chest and gaped. When he could speak again, his voice was a squeak.

"So, you are actually saying... you simply came just to _see_ me?"

Geralt considered. Then gave a nod.

With a watery gasp, Jaskier covered his eyes with one hand, waving the other in Geralt's general direction when the surprised Witcher lurched halfway out his chair.

"Sorry, no, I'm sorry, I'm happy you're here, that's just so.... I wasn't- That's just- Oh, Gods, fevers make me sentimental! - That is just so _kind,_ Geralt...!”

He heaved a breath. When he saw the stricken look on Geralt's face, he laughed over his tears.

“... And you say we aren't friends when that is so completely what a friend might do! Come and visit just...because!"

He sniffled and waited. Geralt didn't say anything at all, just settled back down in his chair.

"OH! Ho-ho no...come on now! We _are_ friends! You can admit it now, certainly, while I am at death's front gate!"

"You aren't at death's gate," Geralt said.

"Well, it certainly feels like I am," Jaskier said, wiping his eyes and then rubbing his chest.

Geralt looked him over and sighed.

..."Do you want the story or not?"

"...OH. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I do...hold on a moment, I want to write down what you say, lest this opportunity never show itself again! Where is my...? Oh, where is my...?"

Spotting his notebook and quill across the room, Jaskier struggled to get upright. He had his legs over the side of the bed before he had to stop with a moan, head in hands. When he looked up again, Geralt was standing in front of him, holding out the items. Jaskier laughed.

"You're going soft, Geralt of Rivia, I knew it," he said and accepted the book, the inkpot with quill.

"Your head is soft," Geralt bit back. "Don't want you to crack it on the floor."

Instead of returning to the chair, though, he put his weight on the end of Jasker's bed and leaned against the post. He waited until the bard had settled himself back with the book and quill at the ready before haltingly retelling his vampire hunt. Jaskier interrupted with questions, coughs and a bit later, to his embarrassment, relentless yawning.

“Sorry, so sorry,” he murmured, after the fifth time, mouth muffled by his palm, “You're not boring me, Geralt, I promise.”

Not long after, Jaskier's quill slowed and then stilled, dipping in his fingers.

Eyes closed, his head drooped to his chest then jerked back up...once and then once more...before Geralt took action about it. He leaned forward and gave Jaskier's chest a gentle push back towards the pillow, surprised by how warm the younger man was to the touch.

Jaskier made a noise as Geralt took the quill and book and placed them carefully on the bedside table.

"Sleep."

"But.." Jaskier struggled, rubbing his eyes like a child."...the rest of the tale?"

"Sleep," Geralt said again, firm. He pulled the covers up to Jasker's chin.

"Sleep, sleep, yes," he replied, a little irritation in his tone, "heard you the first time...Geralt...?"

"Hmm?"

Geralt was busy now re- wetting the discarded cloth in the basin beside the bed. The water was tepid, not cold, but he supposed it was better than nothing.

"...you'll come back?"

"Don't know," Geralt said, in honesty. He wrung out the excess water from the cloth and laid it over the bard's brow, covering his eyes. Jaskier sighed and shivered. He reached out a hand, weakly grasping for the witcher's arm.

"Thank you...That you came all this way...it means so..." He trailed off, tried again, "It means so..."

Geralt took the hand, felt Jaskier's slow pulse through his too warm fingers. The chest rose softly and fell with a puff. The bard was fast asleep. Good.

Geralt gently placed the hand by his side.

"Hmm," he rumbled to the sleeping figure. "Get well, Jaskier."


End file.
